General sensibility and sensibility to pain and touch more obtuse on the left, the general sensibility of the right hand being 68 and the left 81. Dolorific sensibility, 35 right and 41 left; tactile sensibility, 1.5 right, 3.5 left. The strength tested by the dynamometer showed 47 on the right and 54 on the left, which proved that the subject was left-handed.
The field of vision manifested extraordinary irregularities, with serious scotoma on the inner side of the right eye; on the left side the eye showed only slight scotoma but there was myopia on the inner side.
_Psychic Examination._ The behaviour of the subject was very strange. From the very first day of his imprisonment he seemed to be perfectly calm and composed, as though nothing had happened. When asked how he found prison life, he only remarked: "I certainly thought the food was better."
When asked why he had committed the crime, he replied:
"Crime indeed! I have only done my duty. Those women were always annoying me. Even in the night, they would come tapping at my window and calling me [acoustic hallucinations] and they insulted me because they wanted me to marry them."
"Did they insult you during your absence from Italy?"
"Yes, they worried me all the time I was in America. It was no use changing my occupation. I tried everything; first I was a musician, then a barber, then I tried weaving, but they went on just the same, until I lost my situations through them and had to leave the country."
"Have you ever been insane or suffered from pains in the head?"
"At Chicago, all of a sudden, a doctor called on me, but I have never been mad and should be all right if those women would leave me alone. After all, I only wanted to give them a lesson."
He showed a profound and unshaken belief in his own assertions, such as is rare in simulators or in sufferers from melancholia, but is peculiar to monomaniacs, especially if subject to delusions and convinced that they are the object of general persecution.
Careful investigation of the crime showed that it was entirely without motives and had been committed openly without any attempt to escape or to establish an alibi. It bore no resemblance to ordinary crimes and was clearly a case of monomania with hallucinations. This diagnosis was confirmed by the fact of the anomalies in the field of vision and sensibility, the acoustic hallucinations, and, psychologically, the anomalous nature of the affections and moral sense.